Yesterday morning it was sunny and beautiful but quite chilly. It was about 43 degrees Fahrenheit when I got down to the river. I put the pogies back on after going pogie-less for the past week.
I headed out for a 120-minute paddle. I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor, and then paddled out onto the Mississippi to see what was going on. I paddled up above the Hernando DeSoto Bridge and ferried over to the Arkansas side. With the river flowing at 28.3 feet on the Memphis gauge I wasn't sure if I'd have access to Dacus Lake: I paddled up the lake's outflow channel and discovered that I did not. There's a private road that crosses the channel, and it's only when this road is completely underwater that one can paddle from the Mississippi's main channel to the lake. (At low river levels the Dacus Lake outflow passes through a culvert beneath the road.) Yesterday the road was several feet above the surface.
So I followed Plan B and paddled up the Loosahatchie Chute. On these longer paddles I usually do whatever I feel like as far as intensity goes. Yesterday I threw in a few surges but mostly paddled at a relaxed pace. About the time I was ready to turn around and head back toward the harbor, my legs started cramping up a bit. That's not a problem I have very often. I don't know if it was because of the cold, or a lingering effect of some landscaping work I'd done on Friday that involved lifting a bunch of 80-pound bags of concrete... your guess is as good as mine. Anyway, it sort of bothered me all the way back to the dock, and once I was out of the boat it took a while for my legs to loosen up so I could walk comfortably. I'll be happy not to have that kind of discomfort as a frequent companion.
This morning I had some company: Adam Davis came down to the riverfront to join me in a workout. He put in at the cobblestones near the harbor's mouth, so I paddled down there and did three 8-stroke sprints while waiting for him to get in his boat.
The first thing we did was paddle up the Mississippi to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, do a fast ferry to the bridge's middle piling, and paddle back to the harbor. There was a pretty stiff wind blowing from the south that made the river choppy and confused. Windy days are always wet days: by the time we got back to the harbor my clothes were soaked from taking a bunch of splashes and spray.
Back in the harbor we commenced our main workout: a 20-minute paddle consisting of 2-minute cycles in which we paddled medium-hard (over 6.5 miles per hour) for a minute, then increased the pace to 7.0-7.5 mph for 30 seconds, then paddled at sub-maximal intensity for 30 seconds. The workout went well and I felt pretty good through it all.
Once that was over we continued to the north end of the harbor and then came back south. I bade Adam goodbye when we reached my marina. That wind was putting a chill on things, but the sun was out and the temperature was rising. I found a sunny spot on the dock where I shed my soggy clothes and got dry. I headed home with the satisfaction of a pretty good weekend in the boat.
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